Holy – ISRAEL MUST sanctify themselves

10Jul

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Israel to God‘s desire should respond effort sanctification. Therefore it is important to clean by filling out the appropriate rituals – religious practices (in the catholicism God made purification in man by power of the Holy Spirit during the confession through a priest). This is important because the lack of purification of the “dirt” of sin is lack of co-existence with the holiness of God.

The prophets and Deuteronomy constantly repeating that same sacrifice for sin are not sufficient to please God, you still need justice, obedience and love towards Him. Hence, God’s command:

‘Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel. And you shall say to them: Be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy’. /Leviticus 19, 2 /

not only talks about the purity associated with the cult, but the sanctity of life based on rules or commandments of God.

The sanctification of the people may be subject to a certain development; shall be called holy, those who survive the time of trial and enter into the eschatological kingdom.

HOLINESS IS FOR EVERYONE, BECAUSE GOD BEAT DEATH ON THE CROSS, OVERCAME SIN – IT MEANS THAT He SAVED FROM EVIL EVERYTHING WHAT IS CREATED.

However, it is the freedom to create depends on whether they will follow God – the choice of good or they follow the evil, which unfortunately happens.

10 And he said to him: Go to the people, and sanctify them today, and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments. 11 And let them be ready against the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people, upon Mount Sinai. 12 And you shall appoint certain limits to the people round about, and you shall say to them: Take heed that you not go up into the mount, and that you touch not the borders thereof: every one that touches the mount, dying he shall die. 13 No hands shall touch him, but he shall be stoned to death, or he shall be shot through with arrows: whether it be beast, or man, he shall not live. When the trumpet shall begin to sound, then let them go up into the mount. 14 And Moses came down from the mount to the people, and sanctified them. And when they had washed their garments, 15 he said to them: Be ready against the third day, and come not near your wives.

Leviticus 17

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Speak to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel, saying to them: This is the word, which the Lord has commanded, saying: 3 Any man whosoever of the house of Israel, if he kill an ox, or a sheep, or a goat in the camp, or without the camp, 4 and offer it not at the door of the tabernacle an oblation to the Lord, shall be guilty of blood. As if he had shed blood, so shall he perish from the midst of his people. 5 Therefore the children of Israel shall bring to the priest their victims, which they kill in the field, that they may be sanctified to the Lord before the door of the tabernacle of the testimony: and they may sacrifice them for peace offerings to the Lord. 6 And the priest shall pour the blood upon the altar of the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony: and shall burn the fat for a sweet odour to the Lord. 7 And they shall no more sacrifice their victims to devils, with whom they have committed fornication. It shall be an ordinance for ever to them and to their posterity. 8 And you shall say to them: The man of the house of Israel, and of the strangers who sojourn among you, that offers a holocaust or a victim, 9 and brings it not to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, that it may be offered to the Lord, shall perish from among his people. 10 If any man whosoever of the house of Israel, and of the strangers that sojourn among them, eat blood, I will set my face against his soul, and will cut him off from among his people. 11 Because the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you, that you may make atonement with it upon the altar for your souls, and the blood may be for an expiation of the soul. 12 Therefore I have said to the children of Israel: No soul of you, nor of the strangers that sojourn among you, shall eat blood. 13 Any man whosoever of the children of Israel, and of the strangers that sojourn among you, if by hunting or fowling, he take a wild beast or a bird, which is lawful to eat, let him pour out its blood, and cover it with earth. 14 For the life of all flesh is in the blood. Therefore I said to the children of Israel: you shall not eat the blood of any flesh at all, because the life of the flesh is in the blood, and whosoever eats it, shall be cut off. 15 The soul that eats that which died of itself, or has been caught by a beast, whether he be one of your own country or a stranger, shall wash his clothes and himself with water, and shall be defiled until the evening: and in this manner he shall be made clean. 16 But if he do not wash his clothes, and his body, he shall bear his iniquity.

[* If he kill, etc… That is, in order to sacrifice. The law of God forbids sacrifices to be offered in any other place but at the tabernacle or temple of the Lord; to signify that no sacrifice would be acceptable to God, out of his true temple, the one holy, catholic, apostolic church. (Challoner)

* Eat blood… To eat blood was forbidden in the law; partly, because God reserved it to himself, to be offered in sacrifices on the altar, as to the Lord of life and death; and as a figure of the blood of Christ; and partly, to give men a horror of shedding blood. Genesis 9:4-6. (Challoner)]

Leviticus 18

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Speak to the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: I am the Lord your God. 3 You shall not do according to the custom of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt: neither shall you act according to the manner of the country of Chanaan, into which I will bring you. Nor shall you walk in their ordinances. 4 You shall do my judgments, and shall observe my precepts, and shall walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my laws and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them, I am the Lord. 6 No man shall approach to her that is near of kin to him, to uncover her nakedness. I am the Lord. 7 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, or the nakedness of your mother: she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife: for it is the nakedness of your father. 9 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister by father or by mother: whether born at home or abroad. 10 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son’s daughter, or your daughter’s daughter: because it is your own nakedness. 11 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, whom she bore to your father: and who is your sister. 12 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister: because she is the flesh of your father. 13 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister: because she is your mother’s flesh. 14 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother: neither shall you approach to his wife, who is joined to you by affinity. 15 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter in law: because she is your son’s wife, neither shall you discover her shame. 16 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife: because it is the nakedness of your brother. 17 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your wife and her daughter. You shall not take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, to discover her shame: because they are her flesh, and such copulation is incest. 18 You shall not take your wife’s sister for a harlot, to rival her: neither shall you discover her nakedness, while she is yet living. 19 You shall not approach to a woman having her flowers: neither shall you uncover her nakedness. 20 You shall not lie with your neighbour’s wife: nor be defiled with mingling of seed. 21 You shall not give any of your seed to be consecrated to the idol Moloch, nor defile the name of your God. I am the Lord. 22 You shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: because it is an abomination. 23 You shall not copulate with any beast: neither shall you be defiled with it. A woman shall not lie down to a beast, nor copulate with it: because it is a heinous crime. 24 Defile not yourselves with any of these things with which all the nations have been defiled, which I will cast out before you, 25 and with which the land is defiled: the abominations of which I will visit, that it may vomit out its inhabitants. 26 Keep my ordinances and my judgments: and do not any of these abominations. Neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourns among you. 27 For all these detestable things the inhabitants of the land have done, that were before you, and have defiled it. 28 Beware then, lest in like manner, it vomit you also out, if you do the like things: as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29 Every soul that shall commit any of these abominations, shall perish from the midst of his people. 30 Keep my commandments. Do not the things which they have done, that have been before you: and be not defiled therein. I am the Lord your God.

[Because it is a heinous crime… In Hebrew, this word heinous crime is expressed by the word confusion, signifying the shamefulness and baseness of this abominable sin. (Challoner)]

Leviticus 19

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel. And you shall say to them: Be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy. 3 Let every one fear his father, and his mother. Keep my sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. 4 Turn not to idols: nor make to yourselves molten gods. I am the Lord your God. 5 If you offer in sacrifice a peace offering to the Lord, that he may be favourable: 6 You shall eat it on the same day it was offered, and the next day. And whatsoever shall be left until the third day, you shall burn with fire. 7 If after two days any man eat thereof, he shall be profane and guilty of impiety: 8 And shall bear his iniquity, because he has defiled the holy thing of the Lord. And that soul shall perish from among his people. 9 When you reap the corn of your land, you shall not cut down all that is on the face of the earth to the very ground: nor shall you gather the ears that remain. 10 Neither shall you gather the bunches and grapes that fall down in your vineyard: but shall leave them to the poor and the strangers to take. I am the Lord your God. 11 You shall not steal. You shall not lie: neither shall any man deceive his neighbour. 12 You shall not swear falsely by my name, nor profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. 13 You shall not calumniate your neighbour, nor oppress him by violence. The wages of him that has been hired by you shall not abide with you until the morning. 14 You shall not speak evil of the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind: but you shall fear the Lord your God, because I am the Lord. 15 You shall not do that which is unjust, nor judge unjustly. Respect not the person of the poor: nor honour the countenance of the mighty. But judge your neighbour according to justice. 16 You shall not be a detractor nor a whisperer among the people. You shall not stand against the blood of your neighbour. I am the Lord. 17 You shall not hate your brother in your heart: But reprove him openly, lest you incur sin through him. 18 Seek not revenge, nor be mindful of the injury of your citizens. You shall love your friend as yourself. I am the Lord. 19 Keep my laws. You shall not make your cattle to gender with beasts of any other kind. You shall not sow your field with different seeds. You shall not wear a garment that is woven of two sorts. 20 If a man carnally lie with a woman that is a bondservant and marriageable, and yet not redeemed with a price, nor made free: they both shall be scourged: and they shall not be put to death, because she was not a free woman. 21 And for his trespass he shall offer a ram to the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. 22 And the priest shall pray for him: and for his sin before the Lord: and he shall have mercy on him, and the sin shall be forgiven. 23 When you shall be come into the land, and shall have planted in it fruit trees, you shall take away the firstfruits of them. The fruit that comes forth shall be unclean to you: neither shall you eat of them. 24 But in the fourth year, all their fruit shall be sanctified, to the praise of the Lord. 25 And in the fifth year you shall eat the fruits thereof, gathering the increase thereof. I am the Lord your God. 26 You shall not eat with blood. You shall not divine nor observe dreams. 27 Nor shall you cut your hair roundwise: nor shave your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead: neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks. I am the Lord. 29 Make not your daughter a common strumpet, lest the land be defiled, and filled with wickedness. 30 Keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 31 Go not aside after wizards: neither ask anything of soothsayers, to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. 32 Rise up before the hoary head, and honour the person of the aged man: and fear the Lord your God. I am the Lord. 33 If a stranger dwell in your land, and abide among you, do not upbraid hin: 34 But let him be among you as one of the same country. And you shall love him as yourselves: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. 35 Do not any unjust thing in judgment, in rule, in weight, or in measure. 36 Let the balance be just and the weights equal, the bushel just, and the sextary equal. I am the Lord your God, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37 Keep all my precepts, and all my judgments: and do them. I am the Lord.

[* Different seeds, etc… This law tends to recommend simplicity and plain dealing in all things, and to teach the people not to join any false worship or heresy with the worship of the true God. (Challoner)

* Firstfruits… Proeputia, literally, their foreskins; it alludes to circumcision, and signifies that for the first three years the trees were to be as uncircumcised, and their fruit unclean: till in the fourth year their increase was sanctified and given to the Lord, that is, to the priests. (Challoner)]

Leviticus 20

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: If any man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that dwell in Israel, give of his seed to the idol Moloch, dying let him die. The people of the land shall stone him. 3 And I will set my face against him: and I will cut him off from the midst of his people, because he has given of his seed to Moloch, and has defiled my sanctuary, and profaned my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land neglecting, and as it were little regarding my commandment, let alone the man that has given of his seed to Moloch, and will not kill him: 5 I will set my face against that man, and his kindred, and will cut off both him and all that consented with him, to commit fornication with Moloch, out of the midst of their people. 6 The soul that shall go aside after magicians, and soothsayers, and shall commit fornication with them: I will set my face against that soul, and destroy it out of the midst of its people. 7 Sanctify yourselves, and be holy: because I am the Lord your God. 8 Keep my precepts, and do them. I am the Lord that sanctify you. 9 He that curses his father, or mother, dying let him die. He has cursed his father, and mother: let his blood be upon him. 10 If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and defile his neighbour’s wife: let them be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress. 11 If a man lie with his stepmother, and discover the nakedness of his father, let them both be put to death: their blood be upon them. 12 If any man lie with his daughter in law: let both die, because they have done a heinous crime. Their blood be upon them. 13 If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination: let them be put to death. Their blood be upon them. 14 If any man after marrying the daughter, marry her mother, he has done a heinous crime. He shall be burnt alive with them: neither shall so great an abomination remain in the midst of you. 15 He that shall copulate with any beast or cattle, dying let him die: the beast also you shall kill. 16 The woman that shall lie under any beast, shall be killed together with the same. Their blood be upon them. 17 If any man take his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and see her nakedness, and she behold her brother’s shame: they have committed a crime. They shall be slain, in the sight of their people, because they have discovered one another’s nakedness. And they shall bear their iniquity. 18 If any man lie with a woman in her flowers, and uncover her nakedness, and she open the fountain of her blood: both shall be destroyed out of the midst of their people. 19 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your aunt by your mother, and of your aunt by your father. He that does this, has uncovered the shame of his own flesh: both shall bear their iniquity. 20 If any man lie with the wife of his uncle by the father, or of his uncle by the mother, and uncover the shame of his near akin, both shall bear their sin. They shall die without children. 21 He that marries his brother’s wife, does an unlawful thing: he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness. They shall be without children. 22 Keep my laws and my judgments, and do them: lest the land into which you are to enter to dwell therein, vomit you also out. 23 Walk not after the laws of the nations, which I will cast out before you. For they have done all these things: and therefore I abhorred them. 24 But to you I say: Possess their land which I will give you for an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, who have separated you from other people. 25 Therefore do you also separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the clean fowl from the unclean. Defile not your souls with beasts, or birds, or any things that move on the earth, and which I have shown you to be unclean: 26 You shall be holy unto me, because I the Lord am holy: and I have separated you from other people, that you should be mine. 27 A man, or woman, in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit, dying let them die. They shall stone them. Their blood be upon them.

[The beast also ye shall kill… The killing of the beast was for the greater horror of the crime, and to prevent the remembrance of such abomination. (Challoner)]

Leviticus 21

The Lord said also to Moses: Speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and you shall say for them: Let not a priest incur an uncleanness at the death of his citizens. 2 But only for his kin, such as are near in blood: that is to say, for his father and for his mother, and for his son, and for his daughter, for his brother also: 3 And for a maiden sister, who has had no husband. 4 But not even for the prince of his people shall he do anything that may make him unclean. 5 Neither shall they shave their head, nor their beard, nor make incisions in their flesh. 6 They shall be holy to their God, and shall not profane his name. For they offer the burnt offering of the Lord, and the bread of their God: and therefore they shall be holy. 7 They shall not take to wife a harlot or a vile prostitute, nor one that has been put away from her husband: because they are consecrated to their God, 8 and offer the loaves of proposition. Let them therefore be holy because I also am holy: the Lord, who sanctify them. 9 If the daughter of a priest be taken in whoredom and dishonour the name of her father, she shall be burnt with fire. 10 The high priest, that is to say, the priest who is the greatest among his brethren, upon whose head the oil of unction has been poured; and whose hands have been consecrated for the priesthood; and who has been vested with the holy vestments. He shall not uncover his head: he shall not rend his garments. 11 Nor shall he go in at all to any dead person: not even for his father, or his mother, shall he be defiled. 12 Neither shall he go out of the holy places, lest he defile the sanctuary of the Lord: because the oil of the holy unction of his God is upon him. I am the Lord. 13 He shall take a virgin unto his wife. 14 But a widow or one that is divorced, or defiled, or a harlot, he shall not take: but a maid of his own people. 15 He shall not mingle the stock of his kindred with the common people of this nation: for I am the Lord who sanctify him. 16 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 17 Say to Aaron: Whosoever of your seed throughout their families, has a blemish, he shall not offer bread to his God. 18 Neither shall he approach to minister to him: If he be blind; if he be lame; if he have a little, or a great, or a crooked nose; 19 if his foot, or if his hand be broken; 20 if he be crookbacked; or blear eyed; or have a pearl in his eye, or a continual scab, or a dry scurf in his body, or a rupture. 21 Whosoever of the seed of Aaron the priest has a blemish: he shall not approach to offer sacrifices to the Lord, nor bread to his God. 22 He shall eat nevertheless of the loaves that are offered in the sanctuary. 23 Yet so that he enter not within the veil, nor approach to the altar: because he has a blemish, and he must not defile my sanctuary. I am the Lord who sanctify them. 24 Moses, therefore spoke to Aaron, and to his sons and to all Israel, all the things that had been commanded him.

[An uncleanness… Viz., such as was contracted in laying out the dead body, or touching it; or in going into the house, or assisting at the funeral, etc. (Challoner)]

Leviticus 22

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: 2 Speak to Aaron and to his sons, that they beware of those things that are consecrated of the children of Israel: and defile not the name of the things sanctified to me, which they offer. I am the Lord. 3 Say to them and to their posterity: Every man of your race, that approaches to those things that are consecrated, and which the children of Israel have offered to the Lord, in whom there is uncleanness, shall perish before the Lord. I am the Lord. 4 The man of the seed of Aaron, that is a leper, or that suffers a running of the seed, shall not eat of those things that are sanctified to me, until he be healed. He that touches anything unclean by occasion of the dead: and he whose seed goes from him as in generation: 5 And he that touches a creeping thing, or any unclean thing, the touching of which is defiling: 6 Shall be unclean until the evening, and shall not eat those things that are sanctified. But when he has washed his flesh with water, 7 and the sun is down, then being purified, he shall eat of the sanctified things, because it is his meat. 8 That which dies of itself, and that which was taken by a beast, they shall not eat, nor be defiled therewith. I am the Lord. 9 Let them keep my precepts, that they may not fall into sin, and die in the sanctuary, when they shall have defiled it. I am the Lord who sanctify them. 10 No stranger shall eat of the sanctified things: a sojourner of the priests, or a hired servant, shall not eat of them. 11 But he whom the priest has bought, and he that is his servant, born in his house, these shall eat of them. 12 If the daughter of a priest be married to any of the people, she shall not eat of those things that are sanctified nor of the firstfruits. 13 But if she be a widow, or divorced, and having no children return to her father’s house, she shall eat of her father’s meats, as she was wont to do when she was a maid. No stranger has leave to eat of them. 14 He that eats of the sanctified things through ignorance, shall add the fifth part with that which he ate, and shall give it to the priest into the sanctuary. 15 And they shall not profane the sanctified things of the children of Israel, which they offer to the Lord: 16 Lest perhaps they bear the iniquity of their trespass, when they shall have eaten the sanctified things. I am the Lord who sanctify them. 17 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 18 Speak to Aaron, and to his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: The man of the house of Israel, and of the strangers who dwell with you, that offers his oblation, either paying his vows, or offering of his own accord, whatsoever it be which he presents for a holocaust of the Lord, 19 to be offered by you: it shall be a male without blemish of the beeves, or of the sheep, or of the goats. 20 If it have a blemish you shall not offer it: neither shall it be acceptable. 21 The man that offers a victim of peace offerings to the Lord, either paying his vows, or offering of his own accord, whether of beeves or of sheep, shall offer it without blemish, that it may be acceptable. There shall be no blemish in it. 22 If it be blind, or broken, or have a scar or blisters, or a scab, or a dry scurf: you shall not offer them to the Lord, nor burn anything of them upon the Lord’s altar. 23 An ox or a sheep, that has the ear and the tail cut off, you may offer voluntarily: but a vow may not be paid with them. 24 You shall not offer to the Lord any beast that has the testicles bruised, or crushed, or cut and taken away: neither shall you do any such things in your land. 25 You shall not offer bread to your God, from the hand of a stranger, nor any other thing that he would give: because they are all corrupted, and defiled. You shall not receive them. 26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 27 When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth, they shall be seven days under the udder of their dam: but the eighth day, and thenceforth, they may be offered to the Lord. 28 Whether it be a cow, or a sheep, they shall not be sacrificed the same day with their young ones. 29 If you immolate a victim for thanksgiving to the Lord, that he may be favourable, 30 you shall eat it the same day. There shall not any of it remain until the morning of the next day. I am the Lord. 31 Keep my commandments, and do them. I am the Lord. 32 Profane not my holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctify you: 33 And who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. I am the Lord.

[Approaches, etc… This is to give us to understand, with what purity of soul we are to approach to the blessed sacrament of which these meats that had been offered in sacrifice were a figure. (Challoner)]

Leviticus 23

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Speak to the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call holy. 3 Six days shall you do work: the seventh day, because it is the rest of the sabbath, shall be called holy. You shall do no work on that day: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your habitations. 4 These also are the holy days of the Lord, which you must celebrate in their seasons. 5 The first month, the fourteenth day of the month at evening, is the phase of the Lord. 6 And the fifteenth day of the same month is the solemnity of the unleavened bread of the Lord. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread. 7 The first day shall be most solemn unto you, and holy: you shall do no servile work therein. 8 But you shall offer sacrifice in fire to the Lord seven days. And the seventh day shall be more solemn, and more holy: and you shall do no servile work therein. 9 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 10 Speak to the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: When you shall have entered into the land which I will give you, and shall reap your corn, you shall bring sheaves of ears, the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. 11 Who shall lift up the sheaf before the Lord, the next day after the sabbath, that it may be acceptable for you, and shall sanctify it. 12 And on the same day that the sheaf is consecrated, a lamb without blemish of the first year shall be killed for a holocaust of the Lord. 13 And the libations shall be offered with it: two tenths of flour tempered with oil, for a burnt offering of the Lord, and a most sweet odour. Libations also of wine, the fourth part of a hin. 14 You shall not eat either bread, or parched corn, or frumenty or the harvest, until the day that you shall offer thereof to your God. It is a precept for ever throughout your generations, and all your dwellings. 15 You shall count therefore from the morrow after the sabbath, wherein you offered the sheaf of firstfruits, seven full weeks. 16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh week be expired, that is to say, fifty days: and so you shall offer a new sacrifice to the Lord. 17 Out of all your dwellings, two loaves of the firstfruits, of two tenths of flour leavened, which you shall bake for the firstfruits of the Lord. 18 And you shall offer with the loaves seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one calf from the herd, and they shall be for a holocaust with their two rams: and they shall be for a holocaust with their libations for a most sweet odour to the Lord. 19 You shall offer also a buck goat for sin, and two lambs of the first year for sacrifices of peace offerings. 20 And when the priest has lifted them up with the loaves of the firstfruits before the Lord, they shall fall to his use. 21 And you shall call this day most solemn, and most holy. You shall do no servile work therein. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in all your dwellings and generations. 22 And when you reap the corn of your land, you shall not cut it to the very ground: neither shall you gather the ears that remain. But you shall leave them for the poor and for the strangers. I am the Lord your God. 23 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 24 Say to the children of Israel: The seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall keep a sabbath, a memorial, with the sound of trumpets, and it shall be called holy. 25 You shall do no servile work therein, and you shall offer a holocaust to the Lord. 26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 27 Upon the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonement. It shall be most solemn, and shall be called holy: and you shall await your souls on that day, and shall offer a holocaust to the Lord. 28 You shall do no servile work in the time of this day: because it is a day of propitiation, that the Lord your God may be merciful unto you. 29 Every soul that is not afflicted on this day, shall perish from among his people. 30 And every soul that shall do any work, the same will I destroy from among his people. 31 You shall do no work therefore on that day: it shall be an everlasting ordinance unto you in all your generations, and dwellings. 32 It is a sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls beginning on the ninth day of the month. From evening until evening you shall celebrate your sabbaths. 33 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 34 Say to the children of Israel: From the fifteenth day of this same seventh month, shall be kept the feast of tabernacles, seven days to the Lord. 35 The first day shall be called most solemn and most holy: you shall do no servile work therein. And seven days you shall offer holocausts to the Lord. 36 The eighth day also shall be most solemn and most holy: and you shall offer holocausts to the Lord. For it is the day of assembly and congregation. You shall do no servile work therein. 37 These are the feasts of the Lord which you shall call most solemn and most holy, and shall offer on them oblations to the Lord: holocausts and libations according to the rite of every day. 38 Besides the sabbaths of the Lord, and your gifts, and those things that you offer by vow, or which you shall give to the Lord voluntarily. 39 So from the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you shall have gathered in all the fruits of your land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day and the eighth shall be a sabbath: that is a day of rest. 40 And you shall take to you on the first day the fruits of the fairest tree, and branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook: And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. 41 And you shall keep the solemnity thereof seven days in the year. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in your generations. In the seventh month shall you celebrate this feast. 42 And you shall dwell in bowers seven days. Every one that is of the race of Israel, shall dwell in tabernacles: 43 That your posterity may know, that I made the children of Israel to dwell in tabernacles, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. 44 And Moses spoke concerning the feasts of the Lord to the children of Israel.

Leviticus 24

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto you the finest and clearest oil of olives, to furnish the lamps continually, 3 without the veil of the testimony in the tabernacle of the covenant. And Aaron shall set them from evening until morning before the Lord, by a perpetual service and rite in your generations. 4 They shall be set upon the most pure candlestick before the Lord continually. 5 You shall take also fine flour, and shall bake twelve loaves thereof, two tenths shall be in every loaf. 6 And you shall set them six and six, one against another, upon the most clean table before the Lord. 7 And you shall put upon them the clearest frankincense, that the bread may be for a memorial of the oblation of the Lord. 8 Every sabbath they shall be changed before the Lord: being received of the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. 9 And they shall be Aaron’s and his sons’, that they may eat them in the holy place: because it is most holy of the sacrifices of the Lord by a perpetual right. 10 And behold there went out the son of a woman of Israel, whom she had of an Egyptian, among the children of Israel: and fell at words in the camp with a man of Israel. 11 And when he had blasphemed the name, and had cursed it, he was brought to Moses. (Now his mother was called Salumith, the daughter of Dabri, of the tribe of Dan.) 12 And they put him into prison, till they might know what the Lord would command. 13 And the Lord spoke to Moses, 14 saying: Bring forth the blasphemer without the camp: and let them that heard him, put their hands upon his head: and let all the people stone him. 15 And you shall speak to the children of Israel: The man that curses his God, shall bear his sin: 16 And he that blasphemes the name of the Lord, dying let him die. All the multitude shall stone him, whether he be a native or a stranger. He that blasphemes the name of the Lord, dying let him die. 17 He that strikes and kills a man: dying let him die. 18 He that kills a beast, shall make it good that is to say, shall give beast for beast. 19 He that gives a blemish to any of his neighbours: as he has done, so shall it be done to him: 20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, shall he restore. What blemish he gave, the like shall he be compelled to suffer. 21 He that strikes a beast, shall render another. He that strikes a man shall be punished. 22 Let there be equal judgment among you, whether he be a stranger, or a native that offends: because I am the Lord your God. 23 And Moses spoke to the children of Israel. And they brought forth him that had blasphemed, without the camp: and they stoned him. And the children of Israel did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Leviticus 25

And the Lord spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying: 2 Speak to the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: When you shall have entered into the land which I will give you, observe the rest of the sabbath of the Lord. 3 Six years you shall sow your field and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and shall gather the fruits thereof. 4 But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath to the land, of the resting of the Lord. You shall not sow your field, nor prune your vineyard. 5 What the ground shall bring forth of itself, you shall not reap: neither shall you gather the grapes or the firstfruits as a vintage. For it is a year of rest to the land. 6 But they shall be unto you for meat, to you and to your manservant, to your maidservant and your hireling, and to the strangers that sojourn with you. 7 All things that grow shall be meat to your beasts and to your cattle. 8 You shall also number to you seven weeks of years: that is to say, seven times seven, which together make forty-nine years. 9 And you shall sound the trumpet in the seventh month, the tenth day of the month, in the time of the expiation in all your land. 10 And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and shall proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of your land: for it is the year of jubilee. Every man shall return to his possession, and every one shall go back to his former family: 11 Because it is the jubilee and the fiftieth year. You shall not sow, nor reap the things that grow in the field of their own accord, neither shall you gather the firstfruits of the vines, 12 because of the sanctification of the jubilee. But as they grow you shall presently eat them. 13 In the year of the jubilee all shall return to their possessions.

14 When you shall sell anything to your neighbour, or shall buy of him: grieve not your brother. But you shall buy of him according to the number of years from the jubilee. 15 And he shall sell to you according to the computation of the fruits. 16 The more years remain after the jubilee, the more shall the price increase: and the less time is counted, so much the less shall the purchase cost. For he shall sell to you the time of the fruits. 17 Do not afflict your countrymen: but let every one fear his God. Because I am the Lord your God. 18 Do my precepts, and keep my judgments, and fulfil them: that you may dwell in the land without any fear. 19 And the ground may yield you its fruits, of which you may eat your fill, fearing no man’s invasion. 20 But if you say: What shall we eat the seventh year, if we sow not, nor gather our fruits? 21 I will give you my blessing the sixth year: and it shall yield the fruits of three years. 22 And the eighth year you shall sow, and shall eat of the old fruits, until the ninth year: till new grow up, you shall eat the old store. 23 The land also shall not be sold for ever: because it is mine, and you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24 For which cause all the country of your possession shall be under the condition of redemption. 25 If your brother being impoverished sell his little possession, and his kinsman will: he may redeem what he had sold. 26 But if he have no kinsman, and he himself can find the price to redeem it: 27 The value of the fruits shall be counted from that time when he sold it. And the overplus he shall restore to the buyer, and so shall receive his possession again. 28 But if his hands find not the means to repay the price, the buyer shall have what he bought, until the year of the jubilee. For in that year all that is sold shall return to the owner, and to the ancient possessor. 29 He that sells

a house within the walls of a city, shall have the liberty to redeem it, until one year be expired. 30 If he redeem it not, and the whole year be fully out, the buyer shall possess it, and his posterity for ever, and it cannot be redeemed, not even in the jubilee. 31 But if the house be in a village, that has no walls, it shall be sold according to the same law as the fields. If it be not redeemed before, in the jubilee it shall return to the owner. 32 The houses of Levites, which are in cities, may always be redeemed. 33 If they be not redeemed, in the jubilee they shall all return to the owners: because the houses of the cities of the Levites are for their possessions among the children of Israel. 34 But let not their suburbs be sold, because it is a perpetual possession. 35 If your brother be impoverished, and weak of hand, and you receive him as a stranger and sojourner, and he live with you: 36 Take not usury of him nor more than you gave. Fear your God, that your brother may live with you. 37 You shall not give him your money upon usury: nor exact of him any increase of fruits. 38 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might give you the land of Chanaan, and might be your God. 39 If your brother constrained by poverty, sell himself to you: you shall not oppress him with the service of bondservants. 40 But he shall be as a hireling, and a sojourner: he shall work with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 And afterwards he shall go out with his children: and shall return to his kindred and to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt: let them not be sold as bondmen. 43 Afflict him not by might: but fear your God. 44 Let your bondmen, and your bondwomen, be of the nations that are round about you: 45 And of the strangers that sojourn among you, or that were born of them in your land. These you shall have for servants: 46 And by right of inheritance shall leave them to your posterity, and shall possess them for ever. But oppress not your brethren the children of Israel by might. 47 If the hand of a stranger or a sojourner grow strong among you, and your brother being impoverished sell himself to him, or to any of his race: 48 After the sale he may be redeemed. He that will of his brethren shall redeem him: 49 Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, or his kinsman, by blood, or by affinity. But if he himself be able also, he shall redeem himself: 50 Counting only the years from the time of his selling unto the year of the jubilee: and counting the money that he was sold for, according to the number of the years and the reckoning of a hired servant. 51 If there be many years that remain until the jubilee, according to them shall he also repay the price. 52 If few, he shall make the reckoning with him according to the number of the years: and shall repay to the buyer of what remains of the years. 53 His wages being allowed for which he served before: he shall not afflict him violently in your sight. 54 And if by these means he cannot be redeemed, in the year of the jubilee he shall go out with his children. 55 For the children of Israel are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt.

[Remission… That is, a general release and discharge from debts and bondage, and

a reinstating of every man in his former possessions. (Challoner)]

Leviticus 26

I am the Lord your God. You shall not make to yourselves any idol or graven thing: neither shall you erect pillars, nor set up a remarkable stone in your land, to adore it. For I am the Lord your God. 2 Keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 3 If you walk in my precepts, and keep my commandments, and do them, I will give you rain in due seasons. 4 And the ground shall bring forth its increase: and the trees shall be filled with fruit. 5 The threshing of your harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear. 6 I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. 7 You shall pursue your enemies: and they shall fall before you. 8 Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others: and a hundred of you ten thousand. Your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish my covenant with you. 10 You shall eat the oldest of the old store: and, new coming on, you shall cast away the old. 11 I will set my tabernacle in the midst of you: and my soul shall not cast you off. 12 I will walk among you, and will be your God: and you shall be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God: who have brought you out of the land of the Egyptians, that you should not serve them: and who have broken the chains of your necks, that you might go upright. 14 But if you will not hear me, nor do all my commandments: 15 If you despise my laws, and contemn my judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by me, and to make void my covenant: 16 I also will do these things to you. I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. 17 I will set my face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies: and shall be made subject to them that hate you. You shall flee when no man pursues you. 18 But if you will not yet for all this obey me: I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 19 And I will break the pride of your stubbornness: and I will make to you the heaven above as iron, and the earth as brass. 20 Your labour shall be spent in vain: the ground shall not bring forth her increase: nor the trees yield their fruit. 21 If you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins. 22 And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, to destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number: and that your highways may be desolate. 23 And if even so you will not amend, but will walk contrary to me: 24 I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. 25 And I will bring in upon you the sword that shall avenge my covenant. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you. And you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies, 26 after I shall have broken the staff of your bread: so that ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and give it out by weight: and you shall eat, and shall not be filled, 27 but if you will not for all this hearken to me, but will walk against me, 28 I will also go against you with opposite fury: and I will chastise you with seven plagues for your sins, 29 so that you shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. 31 Insomuch that I will bring your cities to be a wilderness: and I will make your sanctuaries desolate: and will receive no more your sweet odours. 32 And I will destroy your land: and your enemies shall be astonished at it, when they shall be the inhabitants thereof. 33 And I will scatter you among the Gentiles: and I will draw out the sword after you. And your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. 34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths all the days of her desolation. When you shall be 35 in the enemy’s land, she shall keep a sabbath, and rest in the sabbaths of her desolation: because she did not rest in your sabbaths, when you dwelt therein. 36 And as to them that shall remain of you I will send fear in their hearts in the countries of their enemies. The sound of a flying leaf shall terrify them: and they shall flee as it were from the sword. They shall fall, when no man pursues them. 37 And they shall every one fall upon their brethren as fleeing from wars: none of you shall dare to resist your enemies. 38 You shall perish among the Gentiles: and an enemy’s land shall consume you. 39 And if of them also some remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities, in the land of their enemies: and they shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers, and their own. 40 Until they confess their iniquities, and the iniquities of their ancestors, whereby they have transgressed against me, and walked contrary unto me. 41 Therefore I also will walk against them, and bring them into their enemies’ land until their uncircumcised mind be ashamed. Then shall they pray for their sins. 42 And I will remember my covenant, that I made with Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham. I will remember also the land: 43 Which when she shall be left by them, shall enjoy her sabbaths, being desolate for them. But they shall pray for their sins, because they rejected my judgments, and despised my laws. 44 And yet for all that when they were in the land of their enemies, I did not cast them off altogether. Neither did I so despise them that they should be quite consumed: and I should make void my covenant with them. For I am the Lord their God. 45 And I will remember my former covenant, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, in the sight of the Gentiles, to be their God. I am the Lord. 46 These are the judgments, and precepts, and laws, which the Lord gave between him and the children of Israel, in mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.

Deuteronomy 6, 4 – 9

4 Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole strength. 6 And these words which I command you this day, shall be in your heart: 7 And you shall tell them to your children, and you shall meditate upon them sitting in your house, and walking on your journey, sleeping and rising. 8 And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be and shall move between your eyes. 9 And you shall write them in the entry, and on the doors of your house.

Psalm 34, 10

10 Fear the Lord, all you his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.

Psalm 51

1 Unto the end, a psalm of David, 2 when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had sinned with Bethsabee. 3 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy. And according to the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my iniquity. 4 Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 5 For I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me. 6 To you only have I sinned, and have done evil before you: that you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged. 7 For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me. 8 For behold you have loved truth: the uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom you have made manifest to me. 9 You shall sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: you shall wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. 10 To my hearing you shall give joy and gladness: and the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice. 11 Turn away your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 12 Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels. 13 Cast me not away from your face; and take not your holy spirit from me. 14 Restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a perfect spirit. 15 I will teach the unjust your ways: and the wicked shall be converted to you. 16 Deliver me from blood, O God, you God of my salvation: and my tongue shall extol your justice. 17 O Lord, you will open my lips: and my mouth shall declare your praise. 18 For if you had desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it: with burnt offerings you will not be delighted. 19 A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise. 20 Deal favourably, O Lord, in your good will with Sion; that the walls of Jerusalem may be built up. 21 Then shall you accept the sacrifice of justice, oblations and whole burnt offerings: then shall they lay calves

upon your altar.

Isaiah 1, 4 – 20

4 Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they have gone away backwards. 5 For what shall I strike you any more, you that increase transgression? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad. 6 From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores: they are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil. 7 Your land is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire: your country strangers devour before your face, and it shall be desolate as when wasted by enemies. 8 And the daughter of Sion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a city that is laid waste. 9 Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha. 10 Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrha. 11 To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims, says the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats. 12 When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in my courts? 13 Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked. 14 My soul hates your new moons, and your solemnities: they have become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them. 15 And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes, cease to do perversely, 17 learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow. 18 And then come, and accuse me, says the Lord: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool. 19 If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land. 20 But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath: the sword shall devour you because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

Isaiah 4, 3

3 And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall be left in Sion, and that shall remain in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written in life in Jerusalem.

Daniel 7, 18 – 22

18 But the saints of the most high God shall take the kingdom: and they shall possess the kingdom for ever and ever. 19 After this I would diligently learn concerning the fourth beast, which was very different from all, and exceeding terrible: his teeth and claws were of iron: he devoured and broke in pieces, and the rest he stamped upon with his feet: 20 And concerning the ten horns that he had on his head: and concerning the other that came up, before which three horns fell: and of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth speaking great things, and was greater than the rest. 21 I beheld, and lo, that horn made war against the saints, and prevailed over them, 22 till the ancient of days came and gave judgment to the saints of the most High, and the time came, and the saints obtained the kingdom.